Onward and upward; organs, ribs, arms. When I tug at her spine near the base of her skull, she sucks in a little gasp she couldn’t quite suppress.
I restrain a smile.
But I reach the top of her head without any sign of a hidden piece masquerading as bone or tissue. Releasing my focus, I shake the tension out of my own body from the intense concentration of the last several minutes.
Riva’s shoulders slump a little, but she isn’t shy with her smile. “There’s nothing? They couldn’t have traced me?”
The brief satisfaction I got out of this ordeal vanishes in a snap. “Not likethat,” I retort, and my gaze homes in on the chain around her neck. “There is one more thing.”
My hand shoots out faster than she could have been prepared for, but Riva’s reflexes are sharper than mine even in a weakened state. She jerks backward, her own hand whipping up to cover the lump of the pendant under her shirt.
“What are you doing?” she asks with a flash of teeth.
This is what gets her upset? Not all the jabs of physical pain I just sent through her body—the thought of me so much as touching the necklace that my brother bought?
My teeth grit with the impulse to bare them in return—like Zian would, as if I’ve got an animal lurking inside me, mutating my body, too.
“They could have hidden a tracker in there,” I snap. “Give it to me.”
It’s not as if she deserves that piece of him anyway, not when the rest of us had our last connection to Griffin stolen from us.
Riva pulls the cat pendant out but keeps her fingers closed around it. “You don’t need to take it. You tested everything else without even touching me.”
She’s right, but that doesn’t mean I have to like it. “It should be mine. He was my brother.”
Something both fierce and haunted flares in her bright eyes. “It’s the only thing I have left. We—we can look for the other ones—we’ll get them back someday. But he gave this one tome.”
Her voice turns ragged with the last few words, anguished enough that I find myself hesitating despite my best intentions. And that pisses me off more than anything.
“Fine.” I glare at her hand, which she unfolds tentatively so I can at least see the little silver sculpture, and press my talent against every nook and joint to confirm it doesn’t contain hidden circuitry.
I could break it so easily. One swift twist, and the cat and yarn would crack apart for good. But I’m not quite angry enough to do that.
It isn’t just hers. It was Griffin’s too.
When I sigh with the release of my attention, Riva tucks the pendant away. “Nothing there either?” she checks eagerly.
My teeth set on edge. I aim the full force of my glare straight into her eyes.
The other guys might be starting to forget who she’s proven herself to be, but Ineverwill, and I won’t let her forget either.
“No,” I say, flattening my voice so it’s hard as steel. “But it doesn’t make a difference. It doesn’t matter even if you really are trying to help us now. There’s nothing in this hellhole of a world that you can do to make up for what you’ve already done. You killedallof us that day, one way or another.”
Riva flinches. “Jake—”
“Don’t youdaretalk to me like I’m still your friend.” I take a step forward, looming on her tiny frame. “The only reason I’ve hung in here is so I can annihilate everyone who had a part in destroying my brother, and that is always going to include you.”
My anger doesn’t feel hot anymore. My veins might as well be full of ice.
I whip around before Riva can try to respond and stride back to the car, lifting my voice to wake the others.
“Let’s go! The sun’s coming up, and we have gas—we’ve got to get moving before those pricks find us again.”
Nineteen
Riva
Given that the town we’ve stopped in is about the size of a postage stamp, it shouldn’t surprise me that the local version of a supermarket is all of three aisles and a single dingy wall freezer. I peer through the smudged glass at the offerings, feeling strangely adrift.